Delay and changes In August 2014, Sony delayed
The Interview's release date from October 10 to December 25, 2014 and made
post-production alterations to the film to modify its portrayal of North Korea, including changing the designs of buttons worn by characters, which were originally modeled after real North Korean military buttons praising the country's leaders, and cutting a portion of Kim Jong Un's death scene. In December 2014, South Korean singer
Yoon Mi-rae revealed that the film used her song "Pay Day" without permission, and that she was taking legal action. Yoon Mi-rae and her label
Feel Ghood Music reached a settlement with Sony Pictures on May 13, 2015.
Sony Pictures hack and threats 's computer system in late 2014 in retaliation for the film's content. On November 24, 2014, an anonymous group identifying themselves as the "
Guardians of Peace" hacked the computer networks of Columbia's parent company Sony Pictures Entertainment. The hackers
leaked internal emails, employee records and several recent and unreleased Sony Pictures films, including
Annie,
Mr. Turner,
Still Alice and
To Write Love on Her Arms. The North Korean government denied involvement in the hack. On December 8, the hackers leaked further materials, including a demand that Sony pull "the movie of terrorism", widely interpreted as referring to
The Interview. On December 16, 2014, the hackers threatened to attack the
New York City premiere of
The Interview and any theater showing the film.
Distribution The Interview was not released in Russia and Japan, as live-action comedy films do not often perform well in the latter country's market. In the Asia-Pacific region, it was released only in Australia and New Zealand. Due to the Sony Pictures hack, references to the company and its logos, and the "A Sony Company" byline from the
Columbia Pictures logo were all removed from the final film and marketing. Columbia's 1960s logo is featured in the beginning of the film and the print Columbia Pictures logo is used in place of
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's logo on the film's physical media releases, for only Columbia Pictures to be associated with the film. Rogen predicted that the film would make its way to North Korea, stating that "we were told one of the reasons they're so against the movie is that they're afraid it'll actually get into North Korea. They do have
bootlegs and stuff. Maybe the tapes will make their way to North Korea and cause a revolution." The South Korean
human rights organizations
Fighters for a Free North Korea and
Human Rights Foundation, largely made up of North Korean defectors, planned to distribute DVD copies of
The Interview via balloon drops. The groups had previously air-dropped offline copies of the
Korean Wikipedia into North Korea on a
bootable USB memory device. The balloon drop was scrapped after the North Korean government referred to the plan as a
de facto "declaration of war".
Cancellation of wide theatrical release The film's world premiere was held in
Los Angeles on December 11, 2014. The film was scheduled a
wide release in the United Kingdom and Ireland on February 6, 2015. Following the hackers' threats on December 16, Rogen and Franco canceled scheduled publicity appearances and Sony pulled all television advertising. The
National Association of Theatre Owners said that they would not object to theater owners delaying the film to ensure the safety of filmgoers. Shortly afterward, the
ArcLight and
Carmike cinema chains announced they would not screen the film. On December 17, Sony canceled the New York City premiere. Later that day, other major theater chains including
AMC,
Cinemark,
Cineplex,
Regal,
Southern Theatres and several independent movie theaters either delayed or canceled screenings of the film, leading to Sony announcing they were scrapping the wide theatrical release of the film altogether. The chains reportedly came under pressure from
shopping malls where many theaters are located, which feared that the terror threat would ruin their holiday sales. They also feared expensive lawsuits in the event of an attack; Cinemark, for instance, contended that it could not have foreseen the
2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting, which took place at one of its multiplexes, a defense that would not hold in the event of an attack at a screening of
The Interview. The cancellation also affected other films portraying North Korea. An
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema location in
Dallas planned to hold a free screening of
Team America: World Police, which satirizes Kim Jong Un's father
Kim Jong Il, in place of its previously scheduled screening of
The Interview, but
Paramount Pictures refused to permit the screening.
20th Century Fox and
New Regency pulled out of a planned film adaptation of the graphic novel
Pyongyang starring
Steve Carell, who declared it a "sad day for creative expression". Sony received criticism for canceling the film's wide release.
Guardian film critic
Peter Bradshaw wrote it was an "unprecedented defeat on American turf", but that "North Korea will find that their bullying edict will haunt them."
In the Capital and
Gizmodo suggested the cancellation caused a
Streisand effect, whereby the attempt to remove or censor a work has the unintended consequence of publicizing it more widely. In a press conference,
U.S. President Barack Obama said that though he was sympathetic to Sony's need to protect employees, he thought Sony had "made a mistake. We cannot have a society in which some dictator in some place can start imposing censorship in the United States. I wish they'd spoken to me first. I would have told them: do not get into the pattern in which you are intimidated." According to Sony Pictures CEO
Michael Lynton, the cancellation of the wide release was not a response to the hackers' threats, but to the refusal of cinema chains to screen the film and that Sony would seek other ways to distribute the film. Sony released a statement saying that the company "is and always has been strongly committed to the First Amendment… Free expression should never be suppressed by threats and extortion." On
NBC's
Meet the Press on December 21, Sony's legal counsel
David Boies confirmed that the company was still committed to releasing the film. Lynton stated that Sony was trying to show the film to the largest audience by securing as many theaters as they could. Sony released
The Interview for rental or purchase via the
streaming services
Google Play,
Xbox Video and
YouTube on December 24, 2014. It was also available for a limited time on SeeTheInterview.com, a website operated by the
stealth startup Kernel.com, which Sony previously worked with to market
The Fifth Wave. Within hours,
The Interview spread to
file sharing websites after a security hole allowed people to download rather than stream the film.
TorrentFreak estimated that
The Interview had been downloaded illegally via
torrents at least 1.5 million times in just two days. On December 27, the North Korean
National Defense Commission released a statement accusing President Obama of forcing Sony to distribute the film. The film was released on
iTunes on December 28. In the first week of January 2015, Sony announced
The Interview would receive a wide theatrical release in the United Kingdom and Ireland on February 6, but it would not be distributed digitally in the United Kingdom. The film became available for
streaming on
Netflix on January 24.
Home media Sony released the film on
Blu-ray Disc and
DVD on February 17, 2015. The home release was packaged as the "Freedom Edition", and included 90 minutes of
deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes featurettes, a
blooper reel,
feature commentary with directors Rogen and Goldberg, and a special episode of
Naked and Afraid featuring Rogen and Franco. , the film had earned over $6.7 million in sales in the U.S. ==Reception==